SRECs coming to NY?

Posted May 23rd, 2011 by SRECTrade.

This year’s solar carve-out bill introduced in NY, S4178A-2011, is looking promising. It was co-sponsored by 8 Republicans, and since the Republicans have only a small majority in the Senate and the Democrats have nearly a supermajority in the NY House, its a good sign, although it’s notoriously difficult to get a bill that even everyone agrees with through the NY legislature. Gov. Cuomo ran on a strong solar platform so chances are high he will sign any bill that comes to him. The bill itself is very promising, it starts out with a .33% requirement in 2012, which given the size of NY’s load would catapult them even with NJ in absolute terms for required solar build-out with about a 500,000 MWh requirement in 2012. It allows the NY Public Service Commission (PSC) to set the alternate compliance (ACP) schedule, but it has a floor mechanism specified at $300 that is nearly identical to Massachusetts, so the ACP will have to be somewhat higher than that. Overall this is a well-written bill that meets almost all the Effective SREC Market Design criteria outlined in our recent blog post. As of May 18th it had been amended and recommitted to the Energy and Telecommunications Committee, so there is plenty of time for those living in New York to contact their legislators regarding the bill.